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by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 20:43:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had laughed over it when she offered, the two "civil" members onboard discreetly doing business.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the Porn Battle prompt: anatomy.

If he had requested her services, she would have complied. Chosen him with hardly a second though. Young, handsome, well-spoken, wealthy.

They had laughed over it when she offered, the two "civil" members onboard discreetly doing business. Bare to the waist on her neat silk sheets now, her lacquered nails grazing along either side of his spine. Effleurage, downward, and he lets out a small sigh. She can see where Kaylee’s infatuation comes from. He’s beautiful, for a man, almost amusingly demure and dignified inside the patchwork-quilt environment of Serenity.

Simon isn’t ever away from his sister for long, physically, and never away from her mentally at all, Inara is sure. She’s always in his thoughts, lingering as a worry or a doubt; she was taken from him once and he has nothing left to give in order to get her back a second time if anything should happen now.

“Relax,” she murmurs, her voice warm and calm, the way she was taught, and vertebrae settle under the press of her palms.

She doesn’t allow herself to indulge often. Thinking these things only means opening a door that should stay closed; she’s had this battle with herself before. No servicing crew is allowed, of course, a rule as easily enforced as her own barring Mal from entering the shuttle or from calling her a whore.

If she chose, she could trace the pale nape of his neck with the tip of her tongue instead of the tips of her fingers. Ease him onto his back with murmurs and kisses, smother his doubts with kisses and whispered reassurances as easily as she smooths the tension from his muscles now; take him into her hand, watch that dark head fall back and those delicate lips part wider. Simon, for once, thinking of his own interests and no one else’s. Released, if only for a moment, because of her. Inara smiles to herself and kneads more firmly with her thumbs.

He’s smoother than she imagines Mal would be—pale, blue-blooded skin soft beneath her hands. Simon may be less rough in his upbringing and knowledge of the world, but he’s been just as beaten down by it, made that much more pitiable for his youth and vulnerability. They must be nearly of an age.

“Thank you for your trouble,” he says gravely, skin a little pinker over the flawless swaths of his cheekbones, and slips his shirt back on before she can hand it to him. “That was…needed.”

“Not at all.” Politely, as she’s been taught. The honorable businesswoman. “I’m happy to have helped.”


End file.
